[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3583 Introduced in House (IH)]
113th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3583
To expand the number of scholarships available to Pakistani women under
the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
November 21, 2013
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen (for herself, Ms. Granger, and Mrs. Lowey) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To expand the number of scholarships available to Pakistani women under
the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) On October 9, 2012, 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai was
shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan on her way home
from school.
(2) When Malala was 11 years old, she bravely stood up to
the Taliban and wrote a secret blog documenting their crackdown
on women's rights and education in 2009.
(3) Malala's advocacy for women's education made her a
target of the Taliban.
(4) The Taliban called Malala's efforts to highlight the
need for women's education an ``obscenity''.
(5) On July 12, 2013, Malala celebrated her 16th birthday
by delivering a speech before the United Nations General
Assembly in which she said, ``So let us wage a glorious
struggle against illiteracy, poverty, and terrorism. Let us
pick up our books and our pens. They are the most powerful
weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can
change the world. Education is the only solution.''.
(6) According to the United Nation's 2012 Education for All
Global Monitoring Report, ``Pakistan has the second largest
number of children out of school [in the world]'' and ``nearly
half of rural females have never been to school.''.
(7) According to a Council on Foreign Relations report
titled ``What Works in Girls' Education'', ``A 100-country
study by the World Bank shows that increasing the share of
women with a secondary education by 1 percent boosts annual per
capita income growth by 0.3 percentage points.''.
(8) According to the World Bank, ``The benefits of women's
education go beyond higher productivity for 50 percent of the
population. More educated women also tend to be healthier,
participate more in the formal labor market, earn more income,
have fewer children, and provide better health care and
education to their children, all of which eventually improve
the well-being of all individuals and lift households out of
poverty. These benefits also transmit across generations, as
well as to their communities at large.''.
(9) According to United Nation's 2012 Education For All
Global Monitoring Report, ``education can make a big difference
to women's earnings. In Pakistan, women with a high level of
literacy earned 95 percent more than women with no literacy
skills.''.
(10) In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton stated, ``We will open the doors of education to all
citizens, but especially to girls and women . . . We are doing
all of these things because we have seen that when women and
girls have the tools to stay healthy and the opportunity to
contribute to their families' well-being, they flourish and so
do the people around them.''.
(11) The United States provides critical foreign assistance
to Pakistan's education sector to improve access to and the
quality of basic and higher education.
(12) The Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program
administered by the United States Agency for International
Development awards scholarships to academically talented,
financially needy Pakistani students from remote regions of the
country to pursue bachelor's or master's degrees at
participating Pakistani universities.
(13) Fifty percent of the 974 Merit and Needs-Based
Scholarships awarded during fiscal year 2013 were awarded to
Pakistani women. Historically, only 25 percent of such
scholarships have been awarded to women.
(14) The United Nations declared July 12 as ``Malala
Day''--a global day of support for and recognition of Malala's
bravery and courage in promoting women's education.
(15) On December 10, 2012, the United Nations and the
Government of Pakistan launched the ``Malala Fund for Girls'
Education'' to improve girls' access to education worldwide,
with Pakistan donating the first $10,000,000 to the Fund.
(16) More than 1,000,000 people around the world have
signed the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education
petition calling on the Government of Pakistan to enroll every
boy and girl in primary school.
(17) Pakistani civil society organizations collected almost
2,000,000 signatures from Pakistanis on a petition dedicated to
Malala's cause of education for all.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
(a) In General.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) every individual should have the opportunity to pursue
an education;
(2) every individual, regardless of gender, should have the
opportunity to pursue an education without fear of
discrimination; and
(3) educational exchanges promote institutional linkages
between the United States and Pakistan.
(b) Continued Support for Educational Initiatives in Pakistan.--
Congress encourages the Department of State and the United States
Agency for International Development to continue their support for
initiatives led by the Government of Pakistan and Pakistani civil
society that promote education in Pakistan, especially education for
women.
SEC. 4. MERIT AND NEEDS-BASED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM.
(a) Expansion.--Using funding made available under section 6, the
Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development
(referred to in this Act as the ``USAID Administrator'') shall increase
the number of scholarships to women under the Merit and Needs-Based
Scholarship Program (referred to in this Act as the ``Program'') during
each of the calendar years 2013 through 2015 over the level awarded to
women in calendar year 2011.
(b) Limitations.--
(1) Criteria.--The additional scholarships available under
subsection (a) may only be awarded in accordance with other
scholarship eligibility criteria already established by USAID.
(2) Academic disciplines.--Additional scholarships
authorized under subsection (a) shall be awarded for a range of
disciplines to improve the employability of graduates and to
meet the needs of the scholarship recipients.
(3) Other scholarships.--The USAID Administrator shall make
every effort to award 50 percent of the scholarships available
under the Program to Pakistani women.
SEC. 5. ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING.
(a) In General.--The USAID Administrator shall designate
appropriate USAID officials to brief the appropriate congressional
committees, not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this
Act, and annually thereafter for the next 3 years, on the
implementation of section 4.
(b) Contents.--The briefing described in subsection (a) shall
include, among other relevant information, for the most recently
concluded fiscal year--
(1) the total number of scholarships that were awarded
through the Program, including a breakdown by gender;
(2) the disciplines of study chosen by the scholarship
recipients;
(3) the percentage of the scholarships that were awarded to
students seeking a bachelor's degree or a master's degree,
respectively; and
(4) the percentage of scholarship recipients that
voluntarily dropped out of school or were involuntarily pushed
out of the program for failure to meet program requirements.
SEC. 6. FUNDING.
Of the amounts authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2014
pursuant to title I of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of
2009 (22 U.S.C. 8411 et seq.), $3,000,000 shall be made available for
scholarships authorized under section 4(a).
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